Entertainment and Commerce
Pretoria Boys’ High School prides itself on producing well-balanced all-rounders, and proof of this can point to Etienne de Villiers, a Rhodes Scholar, who once managed Disney World in France.
Other Old Boys in the entertainment business are radio disc-jockey and television presenter Alex Jay, sports presenter Trevor Quirk (himself a former provincial cricketer), presenter Lourens Fourie and political commentator Cliff Saunders. Another media personality is Mostert van Schoor, who was the editor-in-chief of the Natal Daily News and the Sunday Tribune.
In the fields of commerce and industry there are Colin Adcock, ex-chairman of Toyota SA; Charl Cillier, past chairman of Beckett; and Neal Chapman, chairman of Southern Life.
For a school that since its inception has been a cultural interface, one could expect its Old Boys to represent a wide cross-section of political opinion - and they do, from founder of the Herstigte Nasionale Party Albert Hertzog (an Oxford graduate), to founder of the anti-apartheid movement Peter Hain. Falling between these are former PFP member of parliament and now ANC member Dave Dalling, founding member of the Progressive Party Bernard Freedman and veteran member of parliament Vause Raw.
Other Achievements
The school has seen fit to equip society with top legal men with the likes of Wessel Boshoff, previously of the Pretoria Supreme Court; Roger Cleaver and Butte van der Merwe, both past presidents of the South African Law Society; and Oscar Galgut of the Bophuthatswana/Ciskei Appeal Bench.
In the world of academics there are Professor Bozzoli, ex principal of the University of the Witwatersrand; and professor Danie Joubert, present principal of Pretoria University. As a final balance to these men of many worldly qualities are clerics George Daniel, Catholic Archbishop of Pretoria; and Peter Storey, Methodist Bishop of the Transvaal.
Three of the headmaster’s (William Hofmeyr) boys became Rhodes Scholars: Bremer Hofmeyr in 1933, Will Hofmeyr in 1938 and Murray Hofmeyr in 1948. At national and international level Murray became the most famous. One of the school's finest cricket and rugby players, he went on to play in the 1st XTs of Rhodes and Pretoria universities before going on to a double Blue (rugby and cricket) at Oxford.
He played fullback for England in 1949/50 and was one of the top batsmen in English first-class cricket, his average being on a par with those of greats like Hutton, Compton and Edrich. In later years he has become one of South Africa's top men in business and mining, having been executive director of De Beers, Anglo-American and Chartered Consolidated (London) and chairman of the Argus Group.
The High-Flyers
One of the students was flying fanatic Tom Allen who often excused himself from midday classes to do aerial flips over the city - and his school. One day the headmaster looked out of his window at a low-passing plane and thought he glimpsed the school's familiar green blazer striped with red and white.
The next day he called the boy to his office, and the conversation that ensued would have left an eavesdropper wondering about the sanity of headmaster Matheson. 'Tommy,' Matheson began, 'where were you yesterday afternoon? Outside my window at 200 feet?'
The intrepid Allen went on to become a major in the Second World War and was killed over Warsaw during the gallant and tragic South African Air Force flights that helped in bringing relief to that besieged city.
Other airmen who made their mark during the war were Colonel (later Mr Justice) Oscar Galgut, awarded the MBE for participating in 100 air raids, and fighter-pilot ace Lieutenant Bob Kershaw, whose face became familiar to millions when it appeared on the South African 2d stamp in 1942. More than 1 600 Old Boys enlisted during the war, and 93 of them lost their lives. Their names are commemorated for posterity on a bronze plaque in the school's main foyer.
Damon Galgut, son of Justice Galgut, completed school and almost immediately made his mark as something of a prodigy on the literary scene. His novels, short stories and plays include ‘Echoes of Anger’, ‘Number 1 Utopia Lane’, ‘A Sinless Season’, ‘Small Circle of Being’ and ‘The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs’.
The Rugby Stars
Among the rugby stars of the '70s were the three Wegerle brothers, Steve and George early in the decade and Roy a few years after. All were later to make their mark on the soccer field, especially Roy, in the tough school of the English First Division. Formerly of Arcadia United, he later played for Blackburn Rovers, and was a pivotal member of the United States' squad for the 1994 World Cup, qualifying by virtue of his having married an American woman.
Through the 1980s Pretoria Boys' High School pupils continued winning accolades on the sports field. In 1985 Stuart Spencer and Glenn Corbett each scored opening centuries against St John's College, while in the same year a standard-eight first-team player, Dave Erasmus, routed King Edward VII School in a bowling spell of nine wickets for only 42 runs.
The following year Chad Lion-Cachet was vice head prefect and a 1st XV player. He made news in 1991, captaining the University of Cape Town's team in their historic victory over Stellenbosch University, and again in the 1992/'93 season, when he won an Oxford Blue, as captain. On the cricket field - and the first for the school in a decade - was Paul Hector's selection for the South African schools XI, following in the footsteps of his father Alan Hector, who had been selected in 1959.